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Thursday, September 20, 2018

Disinfectants cause obesity?

I’m
female.Of course I have been on a
diet.I don’t exactly come from “skinny”
stock, but after years of trying (successfully or not) to maintain a healthy
weight I’ve come to the realization that any weight issues I have are not my
fault.They are my mothers due to her
overuse of disinfectants when I was a child.

Or
at least that is how I could interpret my battle with the bulge after reading a
study recently published in
the Canadian Medical Association Journal.According to
the study, the use of household disinfectants could increase the risk of
children becoming overweight by altering the makeup of their gut bacteria (their
microbiome) during the first few months of life.As our understanding of infection prevention
improves, so to does our use of hand sanitizers and disinfectants.

In a blog from 2014, I talked about a study
showing that different homes harboured different populations of bugs and that
these populations closely matched the microbiomes of the residents. As disinfectants and hand sanitizers are
agents that are designed to kill microbes (good or bad), in theory the concept
that the use of disinfectants could impact our microbiome is plausible.

The
study looked at over 750 infants and while I will not get into the specifics of
what gut microbiota increased or decreased, suffice it to say, the researchers
concluded that exposure to household disinfectants was associated with higher
BMI at age 3 and that children were less prone to being overweight in
households that cleaned with eco-friendly products.

With
cold and flu season virtually upon us, it’s important not to jump to
conclusions.The researchers did note
that there were a number of limitations in their study.For example, the status of infant exposure
to cleaning agents was assumed from parent report meaning recall bias is a very
likely possibility. The study did not differentiate cleaning products by
brand name or the presence of specific ingredients meaning the results lumping
every active ingredient together and not accounting for the known health and
safety issues with some active ingredients.Further, the eco-friendly products did not
list ingredients on their labels.Lastly, the gut microbiota was from a single point in time nor did they
account for any interventions in the child’s life (e.g. exposure to
antibiotics) that may have occurred during this time.

What
does this all mean?Well, we know that
chemicals found in common cleaners and disinfectants can have negative impacts
on our health such as asthma or cancer.We know that the purpose of disinfectants is to kill indescriminantly
meaning that there can be the opportunity for “bad” bacteria to overpower
“good” bacteria.We also know the same
is true with the use of antibiotics.

My
conclusion is that the study is interesting, but further studies are required to
better understand the mechanisms through which disinfectants or cleaning
products may alter our micrbiome and what that change may have on our health.